If you missed our anniversary bash in honour of fifth year as Community Living Trent Highlands, here is what Teresa had to say at the affair.
One of the wedding presents I received for my first marriage was a quilt from my first husband’s grandmother. She put together a beautiful top and designed it, but in the time crunch she had a quilting group do the stitching. Now from a distance and up close, really, the quilt is a wondrous memory for me of this great person and a happy time.
However, if you get closely at the quilt, you can see the different stitches. Some are wondrous, some are almost invisible, some are a little bold or wonky. The cool thing here is
that I know all of those different stitches are different people who worked together over coffee and chat to put the quilt together.
Our five years looks a bit the same, so many different people, families, staff and volunteers all making a contribution to the stitching that holds us all together. The first five years have been all about stitching, taking the legacies of the three former agencies, the stitches of all those people and adding them all together to make this new agency. We have spent a lot of time, a lot of energy, reviewing, harmonizing, expanding, growing and learning from one another.
In some ways it is strange to celebrate 5 years when the former agencies all began in the 50’s and 60’s when founding members banded together to seek different opportunities for their children in community. All that hard work, energy, commitment and vision remains and adds to the fabric of Community Living Trent Highlands. We are the keepers of the dreams of the founders and all the successor boards that have been involved over the years.
Tonight, we honour the founding board of Community Living Trent Highlands. Perhaps this board did not have to sell flower seeds or cobble together the first salaries of teachers; however, they did have to take risks and stay dedicated to a vision. They made a leap of faith, a bold move, held fast to a dream and did many hours of careful planning and skilled negotiation. Choosing our new name was especially difficult, Community Living Kinmount and Surrounding Area never really had much of a chance. 🙂
Boldly, this board had to travel where few, even in these five year since, have chosen to travel. We take time now to honour the members of that board and we will install plaques in
all the administrative offices of Community Living Trent Highlands.
Members of the founding board were:
-
- Jonathon Baker
- Nancy Brownsberger
- Rick Denyer
- Tony Downer
- Brad Duckworth
- Wayne Eastabrook
- Bev Groves-Foley
- Georgia Hewson
- Monika Hutton
- Carissa McCaw
- Dave McGowan
- Jennifer Neamtz
- Larry O’Connnor
The other thing about those quilt stitches is that they all hold the quilt together expertly even now 27 years after it was made. We all stitch differently, and in these first five years we have learned from each other, created new, decided from different paths, and carefully moved forward in a new harmonized agency.
We have done slow careful stitches about planning, with a new strategic direction in year two and operational planning that looked at all the areas that we needed to review in order to find the best way. The strategic plan set a path to follow that was too soon buried in the avalanche of COVID 19. Then for over 2 ½ years the stitches have been careful, risk averse, difficult and covered in traces of hand sanitizer. It was my greatest hope when planning tonight that we would be marking the end of COVID 19 and pandemic measures. However, as many people know, one of our community homes is even now in
outbreak. The pandemic continues to alter our stitching.
Tonight we celebrate, we are here to dance, socialize and have fun. If you are in the room, you are on our journey and this is your celebration. We celebrate the vision of our founders, the hard work of the five years and all the wondrous achievements of our first five years. I take this time to thank everyone who is part of Community Living Trent Highlands.
Here’s to many more years of Community Living Trent Highlands.
